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I passed four of the five exams with Backup & Recovery to go. The Networking test is not bad at all. Some of the questions seem to be written by a fith grader. It is sometimes difficult to determine just what some of the questions are asking due to bad grammer or simply being too open-ended, meaning you can interpret them various ways by the sentance structure provided. Anyway - I passed!!!

congrats. I am a bit jelous . I am going to write Network Admin in a week or so. I've passed B&R, so after Net8 I will only have PT left. What score dod u get. How was it comparing to other exams? When I am doing STS there are a few questions on navigotion NetAssistant Windows. Did u get any of them on your exam?

I believe it was one of the easier tests - but I really only prepared for about 5 days so my score suffered (50/59). I did better on the others. P/T is not bad if you prepare - the test is straight forward. I did best on the SQL-PL/SQL exam. There were one or two questions on Net8 Assistant. The best way to familiarize yourself with Net8 Assistant is to take the STS with Net8 Assistant running so you can get a visual of the answer. Its also a good idea to just play around with the program and remember the nades, tabs, and options.

I really don't think that you can study too much. Whatever leftover knowledge you acquire along way might find a way of helping you somewhere down the line. Re: scores Sql(56) AA(52) PT(52) Net(50). You are right - a pass is a pass. Who really cares about scores - in the end we all look the same. I'm in Southern California - Orange County. Jobs appear to be in an upswing here. I have a DBA friend that was a consultant and the company he worked at moved to Kansas City. He has been looking passively for a job to come his way for almost five months. Recruters are now constantly calling him and it seems he has a permenant position locked in at around 95k, a bit down from the 120k he was making. He has no certification, but he does have five years experience. He has been through numerous interviews and they all ask about certification and why he does not become certified.

Interesting insight psychofun, that interviewers are even asking mid level experienced DBA's about the certification, makes me think in the long run it's worth it. So how did you and Leo both smoke the SQL exam so well ?! What were your prep strategies, time of prep, background, and resources used ?

Thanks psychofun! 58/64 on A&A here. Agree that the additional knowledge will not go to waste, but I just want to pass the exams... I've been in IT industry for about 15 yrs now, in development and consulting. I know once I get certified, only than I will really begin to study, but, I hope you agree with me, don't u want to finish the exams already?

Once certified I will probebly wait for 3-6 months and go fo 9i.

speedracer!

I used ILT books, STS and BFQ(Couchman). If this explanation is not enough, drop me a line. It worked perfectly for me for now.

I used about the same material as leo. The only difference is that I used the Couchman DBA guide instead of the ILT books. I think leo will agree that if you can do well on more than the 500 sample questions - you should be able to pass a real exam. Learn the material - study the sample questions - pass the test. Notice I put 'study' the sample questions. It is easy to get caught up memorizing answers and really not know why the answer is correct. If you start off by going through each question and looking up the answers you are not completely sure of then you will be prepared. But before I even get to the samlple questions I 'learn' the material, not just read it. I went through Couchman's text and took 50 - 80 pages of notes that I set up as reference material. Even with all these notes I took the sample questions and discovered new areas that the text failed to cover. The BFQ questions are the real challenge because some of them are much more in-depth than the STS. An important tip to taking the questions is go through all the explanations - even the easy questions. The explanations include additional info (especially BFQ). email me for any more tips deranged@earthlink.net